Just something to think about: with an average around 22 million per year via the TV contract, exactly what value do the Beavers contribute?

Tier 1 (aka The teams that matter)

USC

Oregon

Tier 2

Cal

Stanford

UCLA

Washington

Tier 3

Utah

Arizona State

Arizona

Tier 4

Oregon State

Washington State

Colorado

Let's admit something: despite a Pac-12 network that will telecast various sports, this is a football contract. It's the only sport that makes money.

My opinion is the Beavs, Cougars, and Buffaloes contribute little to the current TV deal, yet they profit immensely from it. In this era of "anti-entitlement" politics and "everyone should do their fair share", why are the Beavers receiving 22+ million per year? Further, how long before the teams who are carrying their weight realize they're subsidizing OSU, WSU, CO and balk? The OSU athletic department better get serious, or they're going to start hearing it from fan bases other than their own.

We’ve only been irrelevant for a couple years, the first decade of 2000 was pretty decent for OSU in relation to the rest of the Pac-12.
If people start balking, just wait 5 years (unless you’re USC) and you’re program will have cycled through. Remember when the NFC won 13 superbowls in a row? Was the NFC carrying the AFC?

There’s some validity to that. But even if OSU becomes good again, what do they bring, value-wise, to that TV contract?
Assumption here, but I imagine UCLA brings in more TV revenue in a bad year versus OSU in a great year. What I am trying to say is that no TV executive would pay OSU 22 mil a year, even if they were good. Therefore, even when they are good, they’re riding someone’s coattails. It’s just the nature of the setup. It’s a flawed system because the teams aren’t on par. Therefore, the worse the “entitlement”/subsidized universities do, the louder the cries will become from those bringing in the income. It’s for that reason OSU AD needs a firecracker under their ass. Can’t let the other schools wise up and start balking.

Ok I see your point more clearly. But those teams that draw viewers even during down years still have to play 12 teams a year. Someone will always be a doormat, we just want to make sure it’s not perennially OSU.
See what happened in the Texas Longhorn’s case, they knew they drew the biggest audience so they demanded a bigger share of the pie. While this was a fact, it bred contempt amongst the other teams in the Big 10. (Although I still don’t understand why they all signed off on it in the first place, only to bitch about it later.)
I’m not sure there is an answer to your point about small market teams never being able to draw eyeballs to the TV no matter how good they get.

I’m not sure there is an answer to your point about small market teams never being able to draw eyeballs to the TV no matter how good they get.

Now imagine OSU actually beats USC and goes to a BCS game…imagine how angry the Trojans would be then? A team that gets 22 mil a year but brings nothing to the conference knocking off the team that allows them to bring in 22 mil a year.

Beaver fans have a conflict. On one hand we say it’s nice to get the free lunch, but on the other, we haven’t acknowledged that it comes with the expectation that OSU must be good but not too good. i.e. If the Beavers are terrible, Tier 1 balks at subsidizing them. If OSU is great and wins the conference, Tier 1 balks because they just paid OSU 22 mil to beat them. I think the former is a bigger concern just because the latter won’t happen under Riley!

The answer is simple, I think. If you have the top teams in the bowl games too much, the audience loses interest. There is some point to having variety. The last national championship had the top two teams but they were from the same conference, and that surely cost, in tv ratings. Underdogs are a great story.

The bottom line is — the top tier have to have the lower tier, or they lose their status.

The ink is hardly dried on this deal. USC signed it and nobody held a gun to their head. They must have thought it was in their best interest. You are right that there is only one USC and they had choices if they wanted to change this deal. I still think you are omitting some of the things that USC got out of this deal other than the money. USC is not in the same financial position that the small market schools are in. They are truly self sustainable in their athletic dept. What is a couple of million to them? If anything, money is part of their problems -or at least the way the alumni use that money.

I fully understand your point that USC brings in the most, they should take home the most. But you need to consider that may not ultimately be in their best interest. If they take more of the money and the gap were to widen between USC and the other schools, USC loses their national credibility. Look at the Big 10 five years ago. You had Ohio State and a bunch of also rans. Ohio State would get into the big game at the end of the year and get embarrassed because they hadn’t played at that level all year.

That’s where your logic fails. USC and UCLA are the elites for money purposes. Nikegon is a second tier team only because they’re good right now. I think they fall below even Boise in the “what have you done for me lately” crowd which turns on the TV to root for the underdog. They’re certainly above OSU right now, but the CW is a national draw because many people nationally like to see Nikegon lose. On a national scale, I’ve never known so many people to dislike one school so much as they do for Nikegon. Even Notre Dame didn’t enjoy this much hate when they were a power. I guess that makes them a draw for now. But when they fall off to the nine win years, they may as well be OSU for all anyone cares.

Colorado actually carries Utah into the league. The Denver metro area brings a bunch of new eyes to the Pac market… not so much from Utah. Utah might as well be Hawai’i in terms of TV markets… and they’re not as good a school.

And I think Wazzu is misunderstood. They don’t draw as highly as UW, but they share the market. They don’t just hang out on the Palouse. That would be like saying UA should be relegated to loser status because they’ve never done anything of note in football and they occupy a tiny corner of a state where the major metro-plex supports another school.

So I would swap UCLA with Nikegon, move CU up to Tier 2 and erase any barriers from between Tiers 3 and 4. Nikegon drops down to Tier 3 when they win in the single digits, and any of the Tier 3 teams who do reach double digit wins would be Tier 2 as long as they win.

True, I writing the tiers, I am probably somewhat mixing prestige and recent success with TV markets, which is from where the revenue comes. Seems the only one we really disagree on is CO, though. Utah is tier 3 just because they’re in a major city (33rd TV market isn’t bad).

On that note, I’d be interested to see the Denver area ratings when CO was good versus when they plummeted. I imagine the hardcore fans attend the games, leaving a small audience who actually watches. Maybe not, though.

Since I’m not just interested in criticizing, but also interested in solutions…I think the Beavers need to work hard at further developing their Portland fan base. I’ve mentioned an extension campus many times…they could just improve their image and make it less dated. Portland is the #22 TV audience…affiliate/connect with it in some way like Oregon has. This could be through academics (extension campus), playing a hoops game up there each year, etc.

I think you make a couple valid points about growing our Portland relationship.

1) We already have the e-campus that advertises on buses and what not in Portland.

2) We have a partnership with OHSU for our pharmacy program. Additionally, OHSU is building a brand new dental school building on the waterfront that will also house lecture space for the pharmacy program (and to a lesser extent the medical school). This partnership should be advertised more because that adds prestige.

3) Absolutely agree about playing games up here on a yearly basis. Why don’t they play the Civil War in the Rose Garden every year. I know that both basketball teams leave a lot to be desired but it seems to me that the fan draw would be much more significant because their are less barriers to access (who really wants to drive 2 hours from Portland to watch a below average OSU team lose…?).

I’d agree, more of a two tier idea, with the upper tier being the four California schools, UW and maybe UO on up years. That leaves the rest of the Pac-12 as also ran, bottom feeders.

The state of Oregon is more like Washington in that the two schools share the largest market. So while UO may be up now and seem to carry the bandwagon types, if/when OSU wins the amount of orange and black you see at PDX will most likely increase as well.

I wonder if you could actually find numbers for PDX eyeballs and where they are trained on any given Saturday come September. My guess is the casual fan with no skin in the game would watch either school, with the team ranked higher getting more attention generally.

Certainly, if this was only about money, Stanford could put just about any school in the Pac 12 to shame with what they receive in terms of donations (though not as much in other areas like merchandise).

If USC is in such a position of strength, they should go independent and see if they can do better. My bet is they can’t. Recruits know that in the western US, Pac 12 competition is top notch. Perhaps it is Stanford in swimming, UO in track, UW in rowing, ASU in golf…whatever.

As much power as the AD’s have, they are still part of the university and an institution of higher learning.

None of what you say about top tier teams and lower tier teams is any mystery. So dont try to say that the various top tier folks will suddenly wake up and realize the lower tier … dont belong.

When this new tv contract was made, everyone knew some schools would be the watched ones, and some would not be. Hell, when the conference was originally devised, the big city schools knew they were more important in terms of fan base and money….and they still organized with small town schools to make a conference.

So there is clearly more to this than just money making, and fan base size.

That of course, is no excuse for the OSU athletic dept to sit on its ass while other schools innovate and energize.

Irrelevant. This is the age of jumping conferences, and yet USC and UCLA stayed with the pac. So there has to be more to it than just money or the USC;s would all get together in a single conference and dominate the tv market with BCS-like games every saturday.

I would argue that USC is the only Tier 1 school. They have the LA viewing market and will be the standard bearer for this conference. There are only two schools on the list which even have a shot at matching USC and they would be UCLA and UW. UCLA because of their connection to the LA market and UW because of their history and they have the Seattle market. .

Well, the Ducks have a national audience, the ESPN/Disney affiliation, Nike affiliation, etc. That national appeal makes their regional ratings somewhat moot. Yes, USC brings in the most. I think Oregon is probably #2 at this point. Don’t you think the TV execs who signed this deal thought that way? I can’t believe they’d pay so much for USC alone.

I don’t think Utah is a tier 3, because having the #33 is equivalent to a shared #22. You put Utah in there and that’s 4 teams and that would make up a quarter of the conference. Where does the conference go without a fourth or a third of its conference? They wouldn’t have enough teams too make up a conference, and we have seen how hard it is to qualify to become a member of the conference. So if you take out a quarter what other schools would you replace them with? All this doens’t even take in account the academic standards the conference holds.
Every major conference has an Oregon st, Iowa St, Purdue, Vanderbilt, or a Wake Forest.

I think the University has the right idea of increases the enrollment, that is something they have needed to do for quite some time. Increaing the enrollment will increase the alumni base to draw from. But to increase the enrollment they need to build the infrastructure to support it. I think that is something Ed Ray realizes and has done a good job at. We need to get the enrollment up around 30K. Does anybody know where it stands now? my guess is 23K.

Yes, just over 20k undergrad and 3k grad. The thing is, a lot of that expansion has been through distance education. That is the norm these days, but the problem with that is the folks aren’t local and therefore don’t add to the TV markets, Reser attendance, etc. The more the better, but the more locals the even better. What have they done in the Portland area to increase their footprint? I hardly ever saw Beavs in Portland…mostly Ducks.

I agree. Definitely need to “recruit” or pull more from Portland and even Seattle. There just isn’t a huge populis to attract from. Oregon realistically should have been more like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Louisans, Ohio, Missouri, and Nebraska whose states have just one major college. So, even if you go to one of the smaller instate or liberal arts school you still support the major state sports programs.

Exactly, not enough population to support two large schools a couple hours apart. So the casual fan or those who haven’t gone to either college choose the better team (Oregon). I think they should put a Grade A business school in Portland and run a commuter shuttle between there and Corvallis. Then make an arrangement to play 5 or so hoops game per year at the Rose Garden. Then lose the backwoods image. All of that would hugely increase recruiting (a lot of elite athletes want to major in business), attendance, etc. Am I wrong? Am I missing something? I just wonder because they don’t think like this, and I can’t understand why.

I like that idea alot. Probably be less overhead for something like that. They do similiar thing for the Ag part of the university.

My idea is probably a pipe dream and too expensive. I would like to see them open a Medical School and a University Hospital. The Healthcare Industry is huge. UO did the Law school, We should do the Med schood, it help attract new students, bolster the local economy, etc. But I don’t see the capital for that.

OSU has tied a pre-law program to Willamette U for a four plus two degree. That was an Ed Ray program that is pretty relevant.

And OSU’s sport medicine program is actually one of the best in the nation. I don’t know how they do it with the funding provided. I agree that an on-site orthopedic/kinesiology clinic with GP support would do wonders for the school. If I had millions, I would give enough to form such things… along with a communications department upgrade. In fact, I would tie the preventative health studies to such an endeavor. Both would gain from cooperation. Hell, I’d talk to cooking schools like the Cordon Bleu in order to form a program which ties business with cooking and preventative health… and the spoils would go to the students who eat in the dorms.

OSU has an informal connection with the new osteopathic medical school in Lebanon. I have seen Western University officials on the OSU campus quite a bit though. Those officials have mentioned that they would like to take quite a few OSU kids because they are familiar with the valley and are natural fits for their school…

Five or so hoops games at the Rose Garden is a good start, remember the Far West classic? Additionally, baseball civil war games in Portland and Keiser would help build fan enthusiasm. And how ’bout a game or two for Rueck’s gals in Portland?

even though what you say maybe true, it doesn’t make sense from a league point of view to
pay the bigger market teams more.

you want ALL the league’s teams to be strong, in terms of national exposure.

if you “penalize” teams like OSU, WSU, UA etc., simply cause they don’t bring the same cash as say an SC, then you make the casm even larger between the SCs and the OSUs.

it will just create a weaker league in the long run, and that isn’t what Larry Scott is about.
he envisions a league to compete with the SEC and Big10 etc.

and this is the only way to empower all the pac12 teams to have the ability to compete, especially with the OOC games, which are obviously huge in how well the pac12 will be perceived from here on out.

in this day and age of conference realignment chaos (san diego state in the big east?), there aren’t many teams that are safe, least of all a school like oregon state. if i’m not mistaken they actually did leave the conference briefly in the sixties only to return later on.

The Oregon schools and Idaho (and Montana?) left the league in 1959 because of the pay for play scandal. Only Stanford re-formed the league with those schools right off the bat because they had nobody else to form with when the league started up again. OSU was actually the premier athletic school on the West Coast during that period with the first Heisman west of the Mississippi and a Final Four run. The league tried for more than a couple years to woo us back into the fold of a league that began in Portland. The stigma of the scandal and the schools involved was enough to keep us at bay for a good three or four years more than we should have stayed away. And I’m not sure that culture ever really abated at UW or USC. They just got better at hiding it.

We’re talking a scandal that made SMU look like patty-cakes.

It’s a fascinating period in fact. Wazzu came back in 1962 because UW was stuck in the scandal-ridden group of four (UW, Cal, UCLA and USC). And Wazzu and UW are joined at the hip for all intents and purposes. OSU wasn’t going to return because the group of four felt that Nikegon was responsible for the scandal turning those four upside down. Oregon was caught in 1951 doing the same thing, and they insisted that the conference look at the rest of the league because they claimed “but everyone else is doing it.”

And Stanford was constantly arguing that UCLA should be expelled and OSU included instead since UCLA was the worst of them all.

But OSU would not return without UO. So the league finally gave in and buried the hatchet for a new start. I know some USC alums of that era who tell me that OSU’s Rose Bowl in 1965 was a gift apparently tied to this whole agreement.

That was just a shady period in the league. If not for regional ties, the Pac might have a vastly different make-up today.

how long is the contract supposed to last? around ten years is in not? my hope is that by the end of it the football program will look drastically different than it does now. (perhaps wishful thinking).

The last few recruiting classes have been a step up, so it follows the program should head up soon. Wildcard is the coach’s motivation and evolution. They don’t seem motivated, and they seem behind the times. I still feel that 2009 Civil War crushed Riley. He hasn’t been the same guy since. That being said, a few great players can make the coaches look like geniuses. We all know that from recent experience (Rodgers). Mannion could be one of them. Chris Brown could be another. The OL they just signed won’t hurt. The defensive recruiting is the biggest problem.

agreed, this new money will allow for a (in theory at least) better coaching staff too, namely a somewhat successful and/or reputable defensive coordinator. assistant coaches who are better than most at what they do can take an average coach a pretty long way as well.

Do the Washington Generals contribute to the profitability of the Globetrotters? I am not directly comparing OS to the Generals. But in any sports entertainment business, there are winners and losers. You can’t win if no one loses. Really. I guess that any discussion about what OS sports adds or detracts from society , or the OS community is too boring. If it all just boils down to the bottom line value of winning, and the added value to the Great Pac 12 Conference God, why don’t we just scrap the Pac 12 completely and just watch USC vs Alabama every week in the Circus Maximas? Your logic is exactly the same as the North Korean Dictator. In North Korea, the citizenry serve the Emperor. In your set up, the conference members are only here to produce profit for the Commissioner.

Do the Washington Generals contribute to the profitability of the Globetrotters? I am not directly comparing OS to the Generals. But in any sports entertainment business, there are winners and losers. You can’t win if no one loses

I’d imagine the Globetrotters get a higher % of the gate, though. You really think they split it 50/50? I mean, maybe. I’d have to see proof. The Globetrotters are the attraction, so they should get more. The Generals ride are necessary, but they wouldn’t exist without the Globetrotters. Therefore, they ride their coattails.

Your logic is exactly the same as the North Korean Dictator. In North Korea, the citizenry serve the Emperor.

And your comprehension is exactly like a 2nd grader’s. When did I say OSU should bow down to the Trojans? I actually think the old system, where the bigger TV market too a higher % of revenue, made sense and was fair. This new system might be better for the conference as a whole because OSU can now compete (in theory at least), but it’s not fair to the teams subsidizing the opportunity for an opponent’s success.

I just think the teams responsible for the profit should get more of it. I’m glad they don’t, since I am an OSU fan, but I think they should. It just makes. If I were putting up my own capital, I’d expect things to work that way. Say I’m opening a widget factory. I don’t expect to pay a competitor %x of my profit every year just to make widgets more well known. The idea behind the current contract is that everyone will benefit once the Pac-12 becomes a super conference (ala the SEC). And that is great and true so long as everyone goes along with it (e.g. the NFL), but USC AD and fans will have a legit gripe if they get knocked out of a BCS game because Oregon State, a team they’re subsidizing, beats them in the championship game.

Just saying. It’s something to really think about. Could be a lot of backlash again this scenario down the road. Now, do I love it? Yes, because my team is getting 22mil for being horrible. Doesn’t mean it’s right or I agree with it.

We already have a sample size to compare it too. That’s the Big 12 err Texas. Texas is the primary draw in that conference, but the entire conference was in threat of collapsing until Texas agreed to some more shared revenue. So we will see what happens just by studying that conference. Under your philosophy Texas should be going independent any day now. Maybe they will if there ever is a playoff, but since the title games are tied into the BCS and ultimately the conference champions then they will need a conference to dominate in.

NFL franchises are expensive, require a lot of capital and yet the owners seem happy enough to have a competitive league where the smaller markets are able to be successful… it’s good for all of the franchises.

The NFL does have some other quirks, I admit, but the basic financial tenet is revenue sharing makes the league stronger.

The NFL does have some other quirks
Like the Player’s Association? 😛
That’s why they have that model.
Not that I disagree with the results. I don’t even disagree with the Pac-12 model, in theory. It’s just that it isn’t fair, so people will balk when that plays out. Let’s just be honest, OSU does not deserve the same 22mil as USC.

The Globetrotters do not exist without the Generals. And you missed the point about North Korea. What you are saying is that the members should bow down to the system, rather than the system serving the members. That is North Korean thinking. Ironic that we are today celebrating Lincoln, emancipation from slavery, today ,but wanting to honor our masters at the same time by rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s.

I’m late to this discussion, but Angry I think you are forgetting some things in your argument.

The main reason that the LA schools accepted equal share in the money is that they were able to define the split of the conference. Traditionally, the Arizona schools and the new schools for that matter are not good in football (the money sport), so USC pretty much stacked the deck for getting the conference championship game at their home for the majority of years while the northern schools slug it out.

I don’t know this for a fact, but it is a reasonable speculation, the conference basketball tournaments were likely part of that “equality” deal. Every year the conference basketball tournament is in LA rather than moving around to other viable arenas (like the Rose Garden).

Also, you are taking a snapshot in time and drawing a conclusion. Would you have ranked these schools the same in 2008? How about in the early ’90’s when UW was the big draw in the west? It is not scientific to take a small sample size and draw conclusions from it.

Your point about drawing Portland in is understandable but I think a bit narrow. Portland is the big pot of gold in Oregon and I would say that right now the only difference in people liking UofO more than OSU is the success that UofO has had lately. Many of those fans would switch in a heartbeat if OSU would start winning (we could have an interesting discussion about if we really would want them). I know you don’t live in Oregon but I was here during the baseball winning and the number of OSU clothes/flags/etc.. went up exponentially. I live in Medford and make the trip up to most of the football games. Like most of the state other than Portland we down here feel very disconnected from the Portlanders. When you have kids in traveling activities you quickly get fed up with the constant trips to Portland without any reciprocation. So, I’m saying that if you specifically market to Portland and don’t win – you just make the rest of the state mad and don’t really gain much. And where do you stop? Many of my friends that graduated actually ended up in Seattle along with many of my UofO friends. People on here are always complaining about the “experience” that is lacking at OSU events, then you are suggesting that OSU abandon their students for 5 games a year? It doesn’t make sense to me, is that 90 minute drive really the reason that we don’t fill up every venue?

My final thought on this subject is that the whole is bigger than the sum of the individuals and to try to look at them individually is a flawed exercise. Would ESPN get into a long term contract with Oregon or USC? How did that work out for NBC with Notre Dame? The reality is that by locking in a conference you are diversifying your portfolio. Someone in the PAC12 is likely going to be a contender every year. There is strength in numbers and it is highly unlikely that the PAC12 is going to ever drop below 12 by their own doing, if anything I would see them wanting to go to 16. So who do you add? The west is pretty much tapped out and by Angry’s argument maybe a bit over-extended. Who else is around that has as big of a following as OSU (I would say Portland may be a 35-55 (10 to other schools) split, but would switch to 55-35 quite easily if success were swapped, and I contend that OSU has 5% of the Seattle market)?

Good topic to get people thinking, but I don’t believe that Angry or anyone else thinks that this is a plausible scenario.

Unless you can justify giving OSU 22mil on their own, then they’re riding someone else’s coattails. That’s why I think every school other than USC and Oregon are doing so, but the lower tier schools are even bigger culprits. To broadcast OSU football would probably cost like..1mil without those other schools.

One of the main points in my rebuttal of your premise was that justification for OSU getting 22 Million on their own merit is a flawed premise. Maybe I didn’t make my points well enough, but UofO and USC are just a sanction/scandal away from riding the rest of the conference’s coattails, to use your words. USC has not been a national draw the last couple of years and have gotten very little national exposure or consideration since their sanctions. If ESPN had an exclusive deal with USC during that time they would not have had a good deal. UofO is riding high right now, but if history tells us anything it will not last forever. You are taking a snap shot of the conference as it is today – so you are correct OSU is down in football and basketball and thus as you say are riding coattails. And I would even concede that some schools are going to be on the taker side more than others.

But, your original post said that they do not add anything to the tv deal and I do not agree with that. I still think your vision is way to narrow, and you totally discount that the Pac12 is stronger together than the individual parts.

I would even go farther to say that having a strong team in the West outside of the Pac-12 does much more damage to the conference members than does a poor performer in the conference. I think Boise State does harm to the Pac12 when it does well and redirects some of the time that the eastern sportscasters must devote to the West. And if you had more schools not locked into the Pac12 (Col, WSU, OSU, Utah) you would have a greater liklihood of a school taking away time.

So, when you ask me to justify the $22 million, I would say OSU is a fully contributing member of the Pac12. They agreed with the other 11 members to share equally in the TV$, while accepting other concessions that gives OSU certain disadvantages in the major sports. All of the schools in the conference voted to accept it, within the last year I might add. The liklihood of the “haves” deciding that they would do better without the “have nots” and trying to oust the lowest tier is slim to none. We had 28 years of football futility without losing our piece of the conference – we need to get some perspective here.

What I will agree with you on is that OSU athletics need to get serious because it sucks to follow these teams that keep coming up on the short end.

My first question is why does your headline have a question mark after it. The beavers are riding the Pac-12’s coattails. There is little argument there. A few years ago, we were not.

My second point is that the other teams don’t mind having a cupcake on their schedule every now and then. So they probably won’t kick us out unless they can find a replacement for us that is a legit research university, and can field a football team just a bit better than where we are at.

Our team coordination screams WAC at best or FCS at worst. So it is by the grace of the system that we are going to continue to keep a spot in the Pack.

A legit research university? Who might that be because as I understand it, we are the largest undergraduate research university in the state. We are even pretty competitive nationally as a research university so they would likely have to grab an ivy league school to find an upgrade.

Agreed, just saying, I don’t think there is a school that offers something academically on the west coast that we don’t. Especially if you isolate for large universities that also maintain large established athletic departments.

I recently went on a med school interview on the east coast and everyone there heard my school and went, “awww Pac-12 football.” They then described the small universities that they attended and the relatively small athletic departments that they have. This is probably the case out here, great schools but weak athletics.

I assume by your comment BeavMonkey that you have another school in mind from the West Coast that is not in the Pac12 and offers more academically and maintain a large established athletic department. What school are you thinking?

I think it is tough for you to argue that BSU is on par with OSU in academics and even harder to think that they have a Pac12 ready athletic department. Football – yes, but they would struggle to keep up with the Conference of Champions in other sports.

The other U Cal/Cal State are strong in academics but would need quite a jump in facilities and would be a project to be competitive in athletics. You would not be able to plug and play.

Tough? Impossible is more like it. Boise wouldn’t meet the levels required to function in the Cal State University system, which doesn’t even come close to Duck High. Nikegon may be the dregs of the conference academically, but they are still a very good school compared to most out there.

How has this played out with the bottom tiered teams in the big 10? I graduated from a big 10 school and I’m still a big fan. I’ve never heard a whiff of any school wanting another out due to riding coattails. Maybe I’ve just missed it, but I think you’re just being a shit stirrer with this post.

I would agree 100% if the flavor of the month didn’t lend to USC’s always present entitlement with regards to this subject. Imagine if Texas were to gain TTech’s support for being entitled to more when Leach was there… then we heard the same from oSu in recent years.

Those schools understand that they bite the hand that feeds them even in a league structured to favor one overly entitled unit. But here in the Pac the divisive support for such entitlement bleeds from even those who shouldn’t feel it. Nikegon will go the way of every other upstart program eventually. But their related speech with regards to “riding coattails” will last and carry over to the next upstart.

I think you bring up a good point. Why does this happen on the West Coast but not out east? What is it that makes recent success blind those who have it so readily?